I coughed up blood today.

Each ragged breath in was met with protest from my lungs.

Dilated pupils stared back at me in the mirror; my head jerked 

downwards as I erupted into a fit of coughs that scraped my throat clean.

She walked past again; I might have

said hello. In the moment, everything seemed fine.

But then I went home and burned up another fever, like

I couldn’t help myself. No, it shouldn’t be like this. I thought I was immune.

No one said a word to me about it.

For all I knew, no one could tell. My intestines

performed intricate choreographies in secret with each

of her passing smiles or greetings. These wounds I remedied with denial:

“A minor annoyance; a headache

that would soon pass”. Yet the pain lingered like frost

to a windshield, creeping up the panes of my feeble conviction. 

My body hadn’t known this sickness before, yet it knew me far too well.

It perfumed the air around her,

and I filled my lungs with it, which blackened as trees do

when grazed by playful embers, its bark tempted by reckless heat. 

This disease perched in me, fed on me, and I didn’t even put up a fight.

Soulful, my contagion. It sang

to me recklessly its tune without words, etching

me empty fairytales. The lines blur (as does my vision) between hope

and deceit. My breath may run dry, but my contagion never stops, at all.